"From the Start" by Melissa Tagg

Romance writer Kate Walker is beginning to feel like her life is going nowhere. She needs a spark. She's still getting over her own bad romance five years ago, and churning out stories with happy endings she's no longer sure she believes in. When her Iowa hometown is hit hard by a tornado, Kate takes a few weeks off work to help her family and friends with their rebuilding projects.

Colton Greene's NFL career came to a halt with one bad play, and now he's floundering to know what to do with his life. He's under contract for a book about his upbringing, but he's hesitant to write because of his painful experiences growing up in the foster system and the memory block from the night his parents died. Deciding to tag along with his friend Logan on a trip to Iowa, Colton sees a real community in action in Maple Valley, and throws himself into helping the town recover. He also finds Logan's sister Kate charmingly reserved and equal to the task of helping him with his autobiography.

Knowing absolutely nothing about football, Kate knows writing with Colton is her chance to turn her life around. With the proceeds from this book she could finally get involved in her mother's foundation in Africa the way she's been longing to do. Colton's big personality begins making its way around the walls Kate has so carefully constructed, and soon hope for more than her writing career begins to blossom in her heart.

With opportunities being presented all around him, Colton feels restless. His agent is pushing him to go into sports broadcasting, but Colton knows that is not going to be a fit with his anxiety in front of cameras. Coaching doesn't call to him, either. But a Maple Valley teenager, gifted in football and also being raised by a foster family, tugs Colton's heart in ways he can't explain. He also begins to grow increasingly uneasy about finishing and releasing the book with Kate, but will she understand the new direction his life is taking? Can he find peace with his past and a purpose for the future?

I really enjoy Melissa Tagg's stories. She has an informal, relatable writing style that makes you feel like you're talking with your best friend while you fly through the pages. I'd recommend her books for anyone who likes clean contemporary stories which draw you in and make you forget about things like sleep while you're in the middle of them.